I win the lottery, and I get to go to the "Island"!

Rating: Null/10 (21 December 2005)

This is a near-future story, where there are no youngsters, and all the men and women are dressed in sleek white jumpsuits. At unpredictable intervals a lottery is held and the "winner" gets to go to the island. In their realm, it is the only other safe place, free from deadly "contamination", and we naturally assume some sort of nuclear disaster has made the outside world unfit.
The premise is set up very well, and the viewer's mind is ready for something better. While the movie is entertaining, the middle of it involves too much action just for the sake of action, and the ending unfolds rather predictably, once we know the gist of what is really going on. Good entertainment, with pretty actors (Johansson and McGregor), but overall just another action movie.
SPOILERS. Some law has been passed in 2015 that allows use of genetic cloning to make human replacement parts, as long as they don't become "people." But the owners of the company find that it doesn't work properly unless they DO become real people, and "going to the island" really means they will be killed to harvest organs and/or other parts to repair the sick or injured "sponsor", their identical twin, that owns them. Of course this operation is all highly illegal and concealed underground in an old bunker. When Lincoln 6 Echo (McGregor) and Jordan 2 Delta (Johansson) manage to escape after he figures out what is really going on, they look for their sponsors to seek an expose' of everything, in the process get chased for extermination and half of Los Angeles is destroyed. Finally, against all odds they survive several close calls, make it back to the cloning operation and destroy the place, and free all the living clones.